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Solid Waste Management on Tribal Lands

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Eastern Sierra Tribal Interagency Solid Waste Workgroup Meeting

Previous Meetings

Bishop Paiute Tribe Environmental Management Office

Tuesday, January 15, 2008, 9:00am – 1:45pm

Attendees

Rural Community Assistance Corporation; Preston Kinne and Dave Harvey,

Owens Valley Indian Water Commission; Teri Cawelti, Rosanna Marrujo and Darla Heil

USDA-Rural Dev.; G. Dhillon and Dan Johnson

Indian Health Services; Loretta Barranger

CA. Integrated Waste Management Board; Wes Mindermann

Big Pine Tribe; Alan Bacock, and Cheryl Chipman

Bishop Paiute Tribe; Tom Gustie, and Brian Adkins

Benton Paiute Tribe; Adora Saulque

Fort Independence; Richard Stewart

Lone Pine; Wilfred Nabahe

U.S. E.P.A.; Heather White, Michelle Baker, and Erica Yelensky,

Tribal Solid Waste Issues

Lone Pine: Has a private recycler on the reservation, and are also adjacent to Lone Pine transfer station. Landfill now charges $2 per truck load. Renters on reservation are problematic, have trash and car build-up. Though there are some abandoned vehicles the main issue is fuels reduction (brush). Environmental staff does community outreach and coordinates with forest service to use industrial chipper for brush and wood.

Big Pine: (299 acres, 580 people.) Looking for economic development opportunities, there are no businesses on the reservation. Have recycling pick up once a week. Solid Waste person does outreach and education. One business near the reservation has a CA redemption center so a lot of people bring their recyclables there. 25% of Big Pine residents use Bishop SW service, 75% does something else (don’t know). There is accumulation of debris and vehicles.  Removal of white goods, have recycling center, collect hazardous waste, motor oil, collect brush (plants), have trailer to remove vehicles (only one at a time), labor intensive and costly with time and fuel. 

Fort Independence: (74 people.) 2 years ago partnered with Park Service so park could recycle. The building where the Park Service recycles is provided by FI. Tribes can get non-profit status as a way to get funding from other agencies, and the non-profit and private sectors. FI has a burn and SW ordinance in place. They have incentives from community members to recycle by providing $50 cash lottery for people who participate in recycling program. FI wants to assist extended community i.e. Owens Valley with SW issues and can help with providing use of an industrial chipper, a fork lift and hauling stuff to LA. It’s important to network. FI has a number of MOU’s with the Navy and a partnership with the Park Service.

Bishop Paiute: (2000 people on reservation). A few years ago Bishop Tribe did a solid waste management plan. Now they are working on an integrated solid waste management plan. After this plan is completed the Tribe will be seeking funding to perform a one-time clean up of the remainder of the solid waste sites.  The Tribe is currently performing a solid waste audit identifying volumes and frequencies of waste stream.   The Bishop Reservation is currently served by two private conventional commercial solid waste collection services and one curbside recycling program that operate as fee based services.   It is estimated at this point that approximately only 33-40% of the residents use curbside service and people still burn using burn barrels.  Several years ago the Tribe established a burn permit program for all types of burning for fire safety purposes but does not prevent burn barrel burning.  This item is being addressed in their plan.  They are looking for funds to purchase a trash/recycling collection truck that they hope to use to run a tribally subsidized service to extend low-cost services to serve the low- income residents. They piloted a large metal item recycling program from 2003 to December 2007.  In that time an estimated 307 cars and 186 large metal appliances (white goods) were removed and recycled.  (Pearson is the name of car the removal company) According to a survey recently completed there are still 386 cars and 42 trailers on the reservation that look/are abandoned. One resident has over 100 cars on their property.  Run as a voluntary program it has been observed that one issue is that residents change their mind about wanting cars removed after they sign up for them or do not follow through on paperwork.  The Tribe has environmental regulations and is currently working on a solid waste ordinance.  Since April of 2007 Bishop has provided a pilot service to the community for junk removal for large items that cannot be removed via curbside service. Currently this service is being extended to elders, disabled, single parent households. This year the Tribe hopes to extend this service to the rest of the community as a fee based service. Bishop also has community clean-up days that they perform annually using a combination of tribal and EPA GAP funding. Bishop is interested working with other reservations in the reuse and marketing of any wastes that can be efficiently recycled and/or reused.  Bishop has initiated demonstration programs in recycling office waste and composting food waste at tribal facilities and will try to extend these efforts to address waste generated from their casino and other businesses. They would like education materials/ideas on how to compost and use compost in their ½ acre garden. Bishop also has vermin-culture bins.

Benton Paiute: They have the same problems as other reservations i.e. trash, abandoned cars, dogs going through trash and spreading it all around. Getting the people to realize that their trash impacts the environment and community is difficult. Current solid waste management practices are devastating for children and the environment. One issue is that people do not care where their trash goes. People should be proud of their reservation and dispose of their trash properly. Unfortunately there are limited funds and the reservation cannot do everything it would like to. They do what they can. They also do not have a good relationship with Mono County. Another issue is that the nearest transfer station is only open 2 days a week. Benton would like to bring in big dumpsters for the community to use. There are also issues with brush removal.

Owens Valley Indian Water Commission: They assist Tribes with removing white goods and vehicles, and have also provided recycling bins and composting units (5-15 households). Have cardboard recycling program. One issue for managing solid waste is lack of funding. Another issue is that it is hard to collect recycling because residences recycle themselves. Within the past few years the county started charging people to dump their trash (dump fees $3-$4). Residences don’t want to pay so they dump it somewhere else, or don’t get rid of it at all and then dogs get into the trash. There are also issues with burning, illegal dumping and abandoned mobile homes.

Agency Solid Waste Resources

Rural Community Assistance Corporation: They are a nonprofit that has been around for about 30 years. RCAC does economic rural development and capacity building in rural communities. They provide a range of technical assistance; from grant writing to composting workshops. They also have Circuit Riders that provide training and can do outreach and networking. Currently they do not have funding for their solid waste program. What they can do now is help Tribes write business and management plans and do surveys to determine a Tribe’s interest in projects. RCAC also has loan funds with very low interest rates ~ 4.5%.

Department of Conservation:

$15 million for multi-family grant for beverage container recycling (anyone can apply);

$1.5 million for increasing CRV recycling programs (competitive, anyone can apply) (1-800-recycle);

$20 million for market development; technical assistant;

Provide starter-kit bins for businesses, gyms, schools;

DOC grants websites:

Contact Sandy Hysan: 916-445-0141.

 

USDA: They work mostly in water and wastewater programs. Grant funding includes:

$16 million nationally; $30 million just for CA. They also provide loans for equipment and other needs ($300-$500K) Loan terms range and can be as long as 25-30 years, interest rate is tied to income and can be as low as ~ 4.5%. Housing programs are also available. They include programs for seniors who can receive up to $7.5K for repairing homes. There is also a program for ADA conversions. Requirements for funding include: homes need to be on a concrete foundation; and “the need” for the grant needs to be tied to a health and safety issue.

Also look for upcoming Housing Preservation Grant, (HPG) -Tribal gov’t can apply. Notification should be in March.

www.rurdev.usda.gov Exiting EPA (disclaimer)

Contact Dan Johnson in the Bakersfield’s office @ 661-336-0967.

Remember: Health and Safety issues are priority and are more likely get funded at national level.

 

IHS: They offer technical and funding assistance for sanitation. Can do plans, cost analysis, feasibility studies and they also know when trainings are available. They do open dump surveys because these are health safety issue.  Dump cleanups are handled in the following steps:

Phase one, develop closure plan, how address clean-up before and after;

Phase two, clean-up;

Phase three, manage plan and continue program (transfer station etc.);

Dominic Wolf is district utilities consultant for O&M .

Contact info:

Dominic Wolf @ 775-784-5327 ex. 226

Loretta Barranger @ 775-784-5327 ex. 225

 

CIWMB: Provide grants for clean-up of agricultural land; to clean up tires; have Household Hazardous Waste discretionary programs; used oil program (for local governments only but tribes can partner with local governments to get funding); Rubberized pavement programs; and a Board-managed clean-up program. For a more complete listing go to: http://www.ciwmb.ca.gov/Grants/ Exiting EPA (disclaimer)

 

EPA:

For more information about EPA grants go to:

Outside of grants EPA staff can offer technical assistance, networking opportunities, trainings, and resource documents.

Action Items

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